Cross-cultural Issues and International Business Communication Practice: From an Anthropological Perspective

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1 Kamla-Raj 2015 Anthropologist, 22(1): (2015) Cross-cultural Issues and International Business Communication Practice: From an Anthropological Perspective Chen Lu 1 and Weiwei Fan 2 1 Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China 2 Wuhan University of Science and Technology, China KEYWORDS Business Anthropology. Business Communication. International Business ABSTRACT In today s increasingly competitive business environment, in order to be successful, communication is one of the most significant functions for all kinds of business firms to master, and it is particularly essential for firms doing business internationally. This paper converses key components of intercultural concerns in business communication worldwide, and offers a skeleton for bringing competitive advantage to companies involved in global business. Culture exerts impact on countless features of global business communication, which in turn influences consumer behavior, localization and standardization strategy decisions, free trade policies, effectiveness of brand, advertising, business partnership, international marketing negotiation, and global business management. Several premises are proposed as guidelines for further examinations. INTRODUCTION Communication becomes a most essential task to handle for any firm aspiring to be profitable in the contemporary market with progressively more fierce competition, especially for a corporation that conducts business worldwide (Tian et al. 2015). The profitability of a firm is partly dictated by its communication skills and strategies in business practice. Notwithstanding, senior leadership in firms running international businesses, because of cultural differences, occasionally overlooks the import of the invisible obstacle in business communication. It is widely recognized that cultural factors have played a key role in business communications and differences of cultures serve as invisible barriers (Chiper 2015). Although the world has become globalized, there are nations that continuously voice the petition to their birthright to culture for conducting businesses internationally. It is expected that nationalized culture will function as a decisive cause affecting economic behavior and development, as well as the broad business policies for most countries. These types of claims on the large-scale will be imperative for creating resources for national advantages, making trade policy and protecting intellectual property rights. On the other hand, the above claims could function as imperceptible obstructions for companies that are going to enter the global markets (Tian et al. 2013). In later 1990s, the delegates attended a summit of francophone nations that shouted for a cultural exception in international rules to govern the trade of goods, which affected decisions on international business policies in many national countries, and automatically initiated a cultural protectionism movement worldwide for multinational trade. Scholars talk about the clash between trade policies liberally oriented that were claimed by the World Trade Organization and the individual countries policies endeavored to protect their identity, heritage, culture and diversity. Companies conducting international business will confront various troubles from alternative cultural dimensions as the voice of cultural rights increase (Footer and Graber 2000). It is critical for enterprises to realize that today s markets are not only international but also crosscultural from the management perspective (Lieberman and Gamst 2015). An important factor for success in the international marketplace is to be aware of and insightful of dissimilarities among different cultures. Firms that are not good at designing business strategy to adapt the context of the target market culture will injure their brands and business relationships with the target markets (Lillis and Tian 2010; Tian 2000a). By studying several constructs of the Hofstede model that are most relevant to the decisions of brand and advertisement, De Mooij and Hofstede (2010) suggest that the constructs should be applied to realize the adaptation and localization strategy for brand and advertisement. Moreover, it is indicated by recent studies that the standardization strategy is less effective than that of adaptation strategy.

2 16 CHEN LU AND WEIWEI FAN These studies have been inclined to confirm that culture plays a key role when advertising and branding are processed by consumers. They also examined the researches that apply the Hofstede s theory to the assignment of distinctive cultures for effectiveness of branding and advertising. Moreover, along with Hofstede et al. (2002) give an account that intercultural relationship should be considered as a principal issue that multinational organizations need to take care of. The current researchers are in the position that both globalization and cross-culturalization are inevitable. While the world increasingly becomes homogeneous, the dissimilarity among national markets tends to be vanishing along with some products even becoming extinct on the whole. At same time, the cultural distinctions among different ethnic groups, regions, and nations are, far from being extinguished but stronger (Emery and Tian 2003). It is clear that international and/or global business communication is a cross-cultural process, which needs administrators to understand the differences of cultures nationally, ethnically and locally to be successful in the global business war. Therefore, intercultural resolutions to global dealing are increasingly being advised as a legitimate and compulsory method to enhance interaction and communication between customers, coworkers and business partners. Multinational business communication negotiates national frontiers for benefit sake. Communication among persons with the same cultural background is not easy, while communication among individuals with various cultural backgrounds that are mutually different in ways of thinking, values, customers, and languages, would be more challenging and a miscommunication is inevitable to some extent (Lillis and Tian 2010). Business communication studies that concentrated on advertising confirm the proposition that the content of advertising failed to agree between nations. The fact that differences in advertising content are present between nations has been supported by international advertising studies. The principle upon which these researches claimed this is that advertisements partially reflect the difference of social systems (Emery and Tian 2003; Zandpour et al. 1992). Cultural value changes can be discovered by the change in advertising content. Gupta and Sonali (2007) studied 400 advertisements that appeared in Bengali (India) periodicals, which were broken into four different phases from 1947 to Through content analysis, they attempted to find out if appeals in advertising had changed during these periods in terms of cultural values. In accordance with their findings, the trends of advertising relevant to collective and traditional values had altered over the period since they reflected westernization, the individual is priority to the collective, and modernization. By studying cultural values projected in television advertising in the U.S. with those of Chinese ones, Lin (2001) discovers that the cultural changes in Chinese could be reflected in most television commercial shows although traditional Chinese values were portrayed as expected. This is particularly the same in the trend towards modernity and youth in today s China. Those results implied that for the perpetual dispute between standardization and globalization, if a marketer has previously advertised in an individualistic, modern Western market, while traditionally different cultures are changing towards the marketer s culture, it should be worry free for the marketer to standardize. Characteristics, norms and values implanted in messages advertised come into view in different cultures to a lesser or greater extent (Munson and McIntyre 1979). Hence, to understand the significance of cultural values contained in advertising bears great functional advantage in the communications for business purposes. Formative differences in cultural values are used to direct the structure of communication strategies in doing international business (Mueller 1993). Overlooking the meaning of culture implanted in advertising may initiate a false impression of the message intended by the firm. In most cases, firms failing in global markets are due to this kind of miscommunication (McCracken 1987). This paper explores issues of communication for business in markets that are borderless and in which the boundaries between nations are not considered as the major measure when making economic plans and international marketing decisions. It is suggested that to understand frames of politics and non-politics, it is vital for culturally oriented manufactured goods, services, and industries, and it is also very significant for those products and industries that require adaptations locally (Tian et al. 2015). At same time, it analyzes strategies of communication cross-culturally in the world s marketplace today. Considering

3 CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 17 the examination, the framework for firms to overcome the invisible cultural barriers is constructed. It also looks into the allegations of cultural rights in the practice of international business through examining the influences of cultural factors on the communication for business purposes, analyzes some key matters in international business communication from an cross-cultural anthropological approach. IMPACT OF CULTURE ON INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS The economic globalization process makes it vital for marketers to appreciate the differences in conducting business cross-culturally. The competence in marketing pushes managers to communicate with customers cross-culturally, which becomes crucial for success. Communication for business is a mutually interactive form of delivering information. Firms send messages to the consumers in the targeted market so that they in turn can gather, interpret, and put the messages collected from the target market and utilize them, if either side runs into failure that may provoke a loss of business. In an intriguing research study, the scholars examined the extent to which both Western and Chinese businessmen documented the cultural impacts and professional favorites on the procedure and the interaction effects. The outcomes of the research demonstrated some foremost divergences between Western and Chinese negotiators strategies and anticipations. For example, Chinese negotiators expressed less emphasis on adaptation than the Western negotiators (Sheer and Chen 2003). At same time, Martin (1999) recounts that to succeed in the Persian Gulf, a great number of franchisers in America had to become more adaptable and flexible in their Middle Eastern operations, to be more sensitive to culture difference, assuring that the operations and policy implemented should be adapted to the culture. The impacts of culture on communications for business are apparent. According to anthropological theory, it is culture that makes people have a sense of who they are, a sense of belonging, as well as a sense of what to do and how to behave. It is culture that provides individuals a learned, interconnected and shared array of codes, values and symbols that lead and give good reason for human behavior (Emery and Tian 2010). While traditionally for marketing scholars the concept of culture has been nominal, as such both consumers and marketers have paid less than enough attention to the concept in terms of depth and importance, and at same time ignored its place in analyzing human behavior (Harris and Moran 1987; Tian et al. 2015). The range of culture runs from modern-based to tradition-based. This categorization integrates the interrelated aspects of cultural and economic bonds. While Canada, the United States, and some other Western countries and westernized societies are classified as cultures that are modern-based, economically, cultures that are modern-based are competitive, market-driven, and post-industrialized economic systems. Asian, Middle Eastern and African societies are termed as cultures that are tradition-based, pre-industrialized, cooperative, centralized, and agrarian systems. Regarding cultural bonds, cultures that are modern-based have weaker connections to their traditions and history, while cultures traditionally based emphasize their established conventions, history and, traditions. However, conventions are ever-shifting (Chiper 2015; Douglas and Craig 1995). Accordingly, the traditional societies cultural bonds may create a market that is noticeably distinguished from the market systems in cultures that are modern based. It is proposed that social and economic factors affect the adaptation and development of marketing organizations (Samiee 1993). Cultural bonds refer to the level a culture that is less willing to abandon the traditional values and resist adopting new values, it is vital to have profitable multinational business communications and to market effectively to the minority people domestically by breaking down the cultural bonds (Tian 2014). Research conducted in an ethnical group concentrated area in China, which can be categorized as an area whose culture is tradition-based, demonstrated that culture influences consumer behavior and product distribution in the area. The researcher observed that the ethnic group consumers cultural orientation is in favor of establishing and maintaining small-scaled retailers defended by unproductive distribution networks that are multi-tiered through vendor loyalty. The cultural bonds in that area made the state-owned retail firms and foreign commercial chains, which are larger scaled and more efficient, becoming less profit-

4 18 CHEN LU AND WEIWEI FAN able than they could be in other places (Tian 1987). Likewise, scholars testify that cultural undertones in the processes of marketing are to a certain extent, derived from preferences by the consumer. Therefore, the cultural features of a targeted market would react to culturally definite bonded channel formations, such as local convenient stores and bazaars (Griffith and Ryans 1995). For marketers from Western countries it is often not easy to figure out the market system in developing regions. For example, Griffith (1998) once indicates that firms from the United States were pushed to appreciate the decisions by the French government to put a ceiling on size of retail stores and to protect local, small sized retailers. He advocates that the government s determination to miss out on the economic efficiencies of distribution attained by large-scale retail distribution systems is partially culturally oriented in nature. Unless realized and comprehended, insightful dissimilarities in non-worded messages, expectations and attitudes will discourage the marketers efforts to operate businesses within China, which apparently is an enormous and emerging market, and somewhere else in cultures that are traditionally based (Lillis and Tian 2010). The local government s interference, as in France s case stated above, aimed to save from harm its own culture inside the obtainable market structure or system. Conversely, regardless of disagreements to some degree, there are a number of regions wherein modern, proficient supermarkets and traditional bazaars are coexisting simultaneously. This harmony is accomplished only when the two systems turn out to be mutually dependent and complementary such as in some areas of China. Accordingly, the researchers suggest that while cultural factors influence marketing, the affects of the influence can be reduced if the managers are sensitive to the differences of cultures. Communication cross-culturally for business refers to the communications that take place among consumers whose culture varies from the marketer s home culture in at least one of the essential features, such as social norms and values, language, education, religion and lifestyle. Business communication inter-culturally insists that firms be sensitive to and aware of the divergences in culture. To value their right to culture by people in a variety of markets, firms need to appreciate that the customers do reserve the right to their own culture. If firms would like to be successful in marketing cross-culturally, they have to respect the rights and values held by their customers. For Western businessmen, for instance, to communicate for business purposes in China, it is crucial for them to understand the guoqing that the Chinese government claimed for considering the special characters or situations in the Chinese context (Yang 1994). Communications for business by no means a behavior isolated but interrelated with all other behaviors in business content, while in anthropological point of view, all business behaviors are culturally bounded (Hamilton 1987). Therefore, with the intention to match marketing with consumer fondness and consumption patterns, firms will benefit from comprehension of the cultural environment in the target market. However, the researchers suggest that marketers shall not put their focus only on differences of culture to modify programs of communication for business purpose. It is also judicious that firms recognize the similarities between cultures to discover the opportunities and to adjust the standardized strategies for marketing programs based on the similarities identified from cultural information. KEY ISSUES OF COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS CROSS-CULTURALLY Communication for intercultural business requires the leadership to determine if markets are feasible by involving an analysis of the culture in which the firm planned to conduct business. By that implementation, the companies should discover factors of the culture that could be applied to maintain the communication for business in the targeted markets. To be the winner, the firm should utilize pre-existed and create new factors that parallel the target market. Human behaviors occur within certain cultural conditions, and consumers can influence or change their culture values through behaviors in the cultural environment in where they behave themselves (Bandyopadhyay and Robicheaux 1993; Griffith and Ryans 1995; Tian et al. 2015). Consequently, culture can influence communications for business and communications for business have an effect on culture. Firms may function as mediators of change in a particular culture. The interfaces between culture and communications for business can be scrutinized from

5 CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 19 the discussions below. Firstly, culture influences consumer behavior through assuring acceptable buying and consuming behaviors. Brunso and Grunet (1998), according to their empirical data gathered in France, Germany, Great Britain and Denmark, discovered that cultural factors influence consumers grocery purchasing habits. Culture also has an effect on behaviors in business, for instance, taking the custom of business gifts as an example. A business gift is expected for starting a deal in Japanese culture, if a host presents themselves without a gift, it is considered an insult. However, in other cultures offering a business gift might be considered as inappropriate, a bribe, and possibly offend the receivers (Arunthanes et al. 1994). Secondly, advertising effectiveness could be strongly affected by cultural factors. Language has a strongly influence on advertising while language is a key component of culture. Moreover, for most firms the budget and structure for advertising are mainly determined by the consumers purchasing style and consumption habits, which in turn, under the influence of norms and values, depend on the status of the material culture and media availability. Scholars assert that cultural factors have an effect on the nature of tasks and the preference of ideas illustrated in advertising. Advertising is a key part of communication for a business, the underlying cultural norms and values contained in advertising are interrelated. Consequently, all the ingredients of culture influence each aspect of advertising (Albers-Miller 1996; Pollay and Gallagher 1990). Thirdly, communications for business affect culture, having a say in cultural change and adaptation. In today s world, the marketing mix becomes standardized along with the markets globalizing and the cultural change speed increasing, which can be illustrated by the cultural changes in contemporary China. For example, it was widely recognized that in China gender gap might strongly affect consumer behavior. Nevertheless, studies found that Chinese participants have no special reactions in response when shown with masculinity appeals, which indicates that the gender appeal is less effective in China as scholars once imagined. One possible rationalization could be that in contemporary Chinese culture the status of gender has been changed from that of the traditional one. Communication strategies for business in China by non-chinese companies could be partly structured according to such a change in Chinese culture. For that reason, Western marketers are advised not to use the same gender appeals as they practiced in the West to do their advertising in the Chinese market (Emery and Tian 2003). Nevertheless, cultures changes tend to be slow, and certain products might have to face with extended resistance. As such, the foremost task for companies is to discover the sameness in different markets and strategically put them together for inflowing to new markets that are cross-culturally different. Marketers need to constantly regulate their own behaviors and programs of marketing in cross-cultural communication processes to get along well with their target markets. However, companies frequently fall into the trick of the self-reference principle when ingoing alien markets, implying that their representatives might consciously apply their own cultural values and practices to communication for business in a different culture. Ethnocentrism is more hazardous than the principle of self-reference, which is the belief that one s own culture is superiors to others, and this type of belief could destroy all the efforts companies made in communications for business. Scholars proposed four paired models of culture requiring unusual consideration when carrying out business in a cross-cultural context, specifically. These are, 1. Relationship-focused cultures versus dealfocused; 2. Expressive versus reserved cultures; 3. Rigid-time versus fluid-time cultures; 4. Formal versus informal cultures. Business will not be conducted with strangers in relationship-focused cultures. In that type of cultures, it is significant to establish strong business networks with the correct person. Although cultivating a personal relationship takes time it is the essence before participating in discussions for business (Gesteland 1996). In most of Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Africa, those features are predominant. However, in cultures that focus on deal, the point is on conducting business at once, despite the fact that the partners are strangers. By contrast, in Germany, England, Australia and America, the agreement in written is regarded as the most crucial symbol to form a bond. Considering informal versus formal business cultures, in informal cultures such as in the North America, Australia, Norway and New Zealand, and to some extent in Canada, societies are open, egalitarian, and value individual ability more than

6 20 CHEN LU AND WEIWEI FAN relationships. However, in formal cultures, mainly in Europe, most of Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, societies are considered mindful, hierarchical, and following strict protocols. Gesteland categorizes the cultures according to different concepts of time. Time is critical in a monochromic culture, discussions for business follow the agendas agreed upon by partners and quickly progress in a linear way. Timeorientated nations are mainly referring to North East Asia, the USA and Canada. However, in cultures that are polychromically oriented, discussions for business have a tendency to go after a pattern of their own but not a predetermined sketch. In those cultures, interpersonal relationships are perceived as more valuable than meeting the deadlines. For companies planned to bargain in a culture polychromically oriented, building a considerable margin of time into agendas is prudent. Africa, Middle East and Latin America are mostly categorized as polychromic, and culture oriented. It is necessary to be well aware of the perilous side of stereotyping persons from different cultures although what Gesteland put forward is useful, and a practical theory constructed by anthropologists proposes that it is imprudent and thoughtless to development behaviors of cultures that are largely different (Emery and Tian 2003; Hall 1976; Lieberman and Gamst 2015). Individuals from distinct cultures hold diverse values of market. For instance, Chinese consumers in Canada have their different consuming and buying patterns and other social and economic behaviors, which are not the same completely as that of Chinese consumers in China. Therefore, multinational cooperation is required to have different strategies for communicating with consumers from different groups (Tian 1999). Business leaders in some cases, know the variety of cultures, but have little knowledge of the way they are distinct from each other. Research is the means to discover what approach to use in stimulating, touching and impressing consumers. The researchers maintain that a more than ever effective way to carry out cross-cultural marketing research is to adopt the anthropological approach (Tian and Tian 2014). IMPLICATIONS OF COMMUNICATION FOR BUSINESS CROSS-CULTURALLY Anthropologist Edward T. Hall in the 1950s started his occupation that was highly influential in business for communications inter-culturally. He was appointed to be the executive for the U.S. State Department s training program named, Point Four from , which is a program intended to train technicians to be dispatched to work outside the U.S. Clearly, understanding the cultural influence on consequence of the effective communication, Hall cemented a career in the communication field cross-culturally and eventually wrote several influential works on business, anthropology, communication, along with other fields (Giovannini and Rosansky 1990; Tian et al. 2013). Hall s influence and experiences in the communication cross-culturally and training interculturally has been enormous. Without a doubt, he fully understood that mistakes in communication inter-culturally could annihilate a business agreement. Hall s book, The Silent Language (Hall 1981), made it clear that culture as means of communication involves issues more than verbal communication. In his view, communication involves non-verbal features and has to be appreciated in a specific situation. In his later works, Hall discussed the distinct fashions of understanding time and space culturally, in addition to their consequences in implementation for business. His experiences in and theoretical contributions to the business communication engendered considerable influence and global value concerning intercultural factors. Gary Ferraro (2002), along with many other anthropologists has carried on Hall s efforts on communications in cross-cultural backgrounds. Geert Hofstede (1991) as the most famous intercultural communication scholar for international business has built a model aimed at facilitating global business experts to identify differences of culture for various nations. His most referred four dimensions of culture model for communications cross-culturally are comprised of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualismcollectivism, and masculinity. More recently, scholars have added one dimension into the Hofstede theory termed as Confucian dynamism, which is a particular intent for differentiating values in the Chinese cultural context from that of the Western (Emery and Tian 2003). The Hofstede model, along with others, has been applied in up to date studies to discover the distinction effect of cultures on business negotiations. Scholars study effects of culture upon planning, styles, and strategies of negotiations. Sobral et al. (2008) demonstrated the style

7 CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 21 of business negotiation embedded in Brazilian culture, based on their depiction of the negotiation activity in nature, the function of uncertainty and time, trust, protocol, the individual communication, and outcomes. From his study Ott (2011) concluded that differences of cultures affect seller-buyer negotiation strategies by determining primary offers, the objectives of the negotiation, the valuation of time, strategic approaches, and the rejection frequency. Weber et al. (2011) studied the impact of cultural differences exerted on planning of negotiation during acquisitions and mergers, along with the impact on the outcomes of negotiation. Two most recent studies uncovered that the negotiators religious beliefs played a role in strategy of negotiation. Tu and Chi (2011), by comparing the negotiating styles in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, discovered that religion had imbued the individuals with a identifiable set of attitudes and values that modify the style of negotiation to significant degrees given the different situations. By comparing and contrasting the religious orientation effects on Iranians, Taiwanese, and the Americans negotiating styles, Farazmand and Daneefard (2011) found that the negotiation styles in these three groups varied a lot depending on their religious beliefs, which is a significant component of culture as discussed above. It is essential to understand the difference of communications for business practice from non-business practice, predominantly when conducting negotiations for business purpose. Chang (2003) has presumed that the Chinese highlight their appetite for the zerosum game in the competitive business activities in most situations, and only the win-win situation is deemed as a successful business negotiation. In fact, a real win-win negotiation should be that any deal attained will cover up most interests that both sides are benefited from. Notwithstanding, it is almost impossible to develop one party s ending while at same time not hurting the other party s outcome. The first step on the way to have a better deal with the Chinese community for business is to be honest. To be honest about the goals, intentions and interests can facilitate both sides to gain trust and create a constructive bartering zone. The second step for a successful negotiation is to recognize and respect the counterpart s culture, being unwearied to wait for the responses. Finally, an extra service or functional favors would be definitely helpful in order to demonstrate sincerity and friendship (Thompson 2001). Scholars have demonstrated that the importance of intercultural distinctions in advertising becomes increasingly clearer when the world keeps moves in the direction of globalization, while advertising is one of the most significant formats for business communication. Marketers should not let long-standing stereotypes force them to design their strategies for advertising, which could be exceptionally imperative in the Asian markets, as both China and Taiwan have formally become the WTO members. Emery and Tian s findings reveal that the heuristics Hofstede s model provided, are too general to detain the comprehensive information required for an effective business campaign. Although their findings do not make available unequivocal recommendations for advertising developing, there is some universal data collected for marketers to seek marketing opportunities in China. For instance, seven appeals should be taken into consideration while making advertising strategies, the seven appeals are namely durability, effectiveness, nurturance, safety, natural and assurance. Conversely, there are ten appeals that should be avoided, namely community, casual, status, distinctiveness, dear, adventure, family, popular, untamed and magic. Marketers are strongly advised to conduct segmentation analysis first, and then check with the specialists for Chinese consumer behavior before building up the advertising campaigns for their targeted markets (Emery and Tian 2003). Studies indicate that in a real business community, if the companies follow the culture model proposed by Hofstede, recognize distinctions of cultures and apply skills of cross-cultural communications for business, the outcomes could be the best possible. In fact, factors that influence transnational business are many but effective communication functions as a primary condition of any triumphant enterprise in doing international business, while effective communication for business more or less involves businessmen s understanding of cultures that differ from their own (Redpath and Nielsen 1997; Rhodes et al. 2005). Nevertheless, to solve, business problems cross-culturally certainly will help meet many opportunities and challenges for companies. Large amount of unsolved problems and issues still call for explanations and discussions

8 22 CHEN LU AND WEIWEI FAN by business professionals in practice and in theory. The following issues and themes need to be probed and discussed in the theoretical area: Cross-cultural aspects of communication for business in the service sector; Adaptation versus standardization in communication cross-culturally; Impacts of cultures on markets: domestic versus international communication for business; Aspects of cross-cultural factors on the communication mix for business (advertising, trade shows, sales, commercials, public relations, and promotion); Implications of communication cross-culturally for the aftermarket; Cross-cultural dimensions of communication for business research; Cross-cultural communications for professional training and business education. The above listed themes or topics serve as guidelines for more academic studies, however these themes and topics should not be considered as restricted for scholars. As theoretical discussions continue, more topics and themes would be determined. Business professionals need clearly to understand that although principals may maintain the same, new challenges to them are predictable. The cross-cultural factor impact on international business is an emerging but crucial issue that demands considerable studies. The points listed below serve as guiding principles for marketers to minimize possible mistakes in marketing practices cross-culturally. Recognize, respect and understand cultural differences; Be sensitive to taboos and dos. Cultivate cultural compassion in communications for business; Be culturally neutral by realizing that different is not necessarily worse or better; Let informants of culture be engaged in the process of decision-making. Knowledgeable anthropologists and local businessmen could be used as cultural informants. By no means take for granted that there is a transferability of a notion from one culture to another. For example, if local businessmen in less developed countries expressed their dislikes of Americans, they may still want buy and sell American goods. Their expressions might simply mean that they are anticipated to say certain words in public, but in private they may activate differently. The anthropological approach, as claimed above, is one of the best tactics to be applied in dealing with issues in marketing cross-culturally. Even though the anthropological tactic to marketing on no account is completely new to the business community, nevertheless it has not been widely used in business practice. It is necessary to indicate that in the U.S. and some European countries, anthropology is becoming trendy and is recognized as more trustworthy by many business managers and marketers (Bronitsky 2010; Jordan 2010; Tian et al. 2015). How can cross-cultural communication for business be employed into anthropological methods and practice is still a hot topic that needs to be probed in all theoretical fields of communications for business. The possible contributions of anthropological tactics to communications for business cross-culturally are infinite to be discovered. As such, it is strongly suggested that communication professionals for businesses and anthropologists should work together to develop that prospective. CONCLUSION Deeply rooted in the life of each member of the organization, culture exercises have incredible impacts on a multiplicity of business practices, such as how resources are allocated, how decisions are made, what types of behaviors are believed proper and who will get promoted. Culture can generate an insightful influence on effects that are fundamentally essential to any business organization, including job satisfaction, turnovers, profitability and productivity. Obviously, if culture is such a powerful factor to influence individual behavior, business leadership must strive to comprehend and deal with properly. Towards that end, the definitions given by both adaptationist and the ideational provide a valuable beginning point to improve individuals to better understand the culture of their organization. From a functional point of view, to have an insight of both invisible and visible manifestations of culture would be an imperative step to determine how to deal with the significant resource for institutions. RECOMMENDATIONS The formats of communications for business include marketing (termed as transmissions from

9 CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 23 business firms to customer), negotiations (termed as business-to-business communications), and from senior management to first-line employers (termed as internal communications for business). Other communications for business take account of communications between business and government. All types of communications are threatened by the jeopardy of miscommunications, especially when they are cross-cultural communications. Because the evidences demonstrate so, when communications are conducted crossculturally, the likelihood of miscommunication increases significantly. Therefore, to reduce cross-cultural miscommunication can generate a large amount of benefits for business firms. 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